Today, flight bar systems are used for separating and advancing single articles or groups of articles in sequence along a predetermined path. These systems typically have an endless conveyor chain coupled to a series of flight bars which define an article space therebetween in which the article to be advanced is positioned. These flight bar systems are often used in conjunction with packaging machines for the advancement of both the articles to be packaged and the containers in which they are loaded. Oftentimes, the flight bar systems advance different size groups of articles, different articles or container of different sizes. Therefore, flight bar systems must be adaptable so that the spacing between adjacent flight bars can be varied.
Flight bar systems have been designed having flight bars which can be manually removed from the conveyor chain and remounted in another position along the chain to change the spacing between flight bars. The reconfiguration of the flight bars in this manner requires the number of flight bars to be increased or decreased in order to occupy the entire conveyor chain. Obviously, this method of reconfiguring the flight bar system is laborious and time consuming. Similarly, flight bar systems have also been designed having flight bars which are manually removed and replaced with other flight bars of a different width. However, again this method of reconfiguring the flight bar system is laborious and time consuming.
Flight bar systems have also been designed having flight bars to which spacer strips are manually mounted to increase the overall width of the flight bars in order to decrease the spacing between adjacent flight bars. However, once again this method is labor intensive and time consuming.
It thus is seen that a need remains for a flight bar system which can vary the spacing between adjacent flight bars in a more efficient manner. Accordingly, it is to the provision of such an improved system that the present invention is primarily directed.